Whaaat Fang is actually doing maths, and it’s not even school-related? Nope. My struggles with SAT collision detection (which I managed to get working in the end, but still) made me realize how important trigonometry (amongst other math subjects) are in game development. I saw someone recommend Khan Academy. After seeing what it’s all about, I gave it a shot.

Khan Academy is basically a bunch of on-demand classes on all kinds of subjects. They can teach you anything from calculus to physics to biology to history, and they even got some computer science courses! Every subject has a bunch of “skills” you can learn. Every skill consists of multiple parts. Some are videos explaining the concepts, others are exercises so you can practice and see if you’ve mastered something yet.

In doing so, you can earn achievements! From anything as small as correctly answering five questions in a row, to things that require huge effort, like becoming proficient in a hundred skills. These are great, ’cause you’re rewarded for doing stuff, and that keeps you going. Also you can display them and be all proud you spent so much of your time learning interesting things.

As for why I’m doing geometry instead of the trigonometry I wanted, they recommended I know some geometry first before starting on the apparently higher level stuff. Which is cool with me, it was the part of math I got left out on in high school anyway, so about damn time I jumped back in!

Have fun learning,
~ Fang

Comments

I’m no fan of math. At least not stuff like calculus, which I’ve never seen functional usage for, but I’m assuming the geometry and trigonometry would be very useful in game programming. Good luck! I hope it serves you well.

Huh, that does sound pretty interesting. I will indeed go check that out. Especially after my slight meltdown yesterday. Good luck with the mathsy things. I was proficient at maths until you added “proper” maths to the equation.